1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the processing of audio data. More specifically, the invention provides a system and method for cross-fading between audio streams having different sampling rates.
2. Description of the Related Art
Using digital data to represent high-quality audio signals is well known, as is transmitting the digital data representing those audio signals over communication networks. However, the number and type of communication links is growing rapidly, and the available bandwidth over these communication links is not always stable.
As one example, broadcasters now use the Internet more frequently than ever for transmitting digital audio data. Yet, because of the wide variety of equipment, much of which is aging or otherwise susceptible to intermittent or permanent failure or partial incompatibility, and also because of the dynamic, dramatic, and continuing shifts in the traffic of data routing through the Internet at any one time, the bandwidth available for any one communication link is always subject to unexpected decreases or increases.
Some advances have been made in maximizing the quality of an audio transmission over communication channels of varying bandwidths. For example, some audio broadcast systems now permit an audio data serving system to select from two or more representations of the same audio signal, selecting the one best suited for the available bandwidth.
Current systems, however, do not overcome the pops, clicks, glitches, and other annoying disruptions that occur when, during the transmission of one audio clip, the audio serving system abruptly switches to a different representation of the same audio clip more appropriate given a perceived change in the available bandwidth of the communication link. What is needed, is a system and method which allows an audio receiving system to continuously receive the highest possible quality of audio data that the communication link can support without annoying disruptions, glitches, pops, crackles or the like, coincident with changes between audio signals of different quality.